Reece still just a gadget player

Darren McFadden and Jacoby Ford weren’t at practice Thursday and will miss another week with foot injuries. Rookie Taiwan Jones returns from a hamstring injury, and will add some speed against the Chiefs on Saturday.

One player who has made big plays recently but is not getting the ball enough is fullback Marcel Reece. He can also line up wide and at tailback, where he had two big plays early against the Lions last Sunday.

On the Raiders’ first TD drive, Reece had a 26 yard run across the middle and down the left sideline, and then one play later, took a short pass for 18 yards. He lost three yards on a catch with 4:37 left in the half, and then didn’t touch the ball again the whole game.

Reece wasn’t even on the field much the second half, and when asked about it Monday, Raiders coach Hue Jackson said he used a lot of 3-WR sets in the second half.

Reece had 6 touches against Green Bay and only 2 — for 48 yards — in the blowout loss to Miami. The guys on “Late Hits” Sirius XM NFL Radio channel 8 asked Hue again Wednesday night, why not use Reece more?

“You can but when you do that then people are going to defense him differently,” Jackson said. “A couple of those plays that he made, he was playing tailback. And he will get those opportunities, but then obviously then you take those opportunities away from Michael Bush.

“He is doing a great job, he has made some huge plays for this football team, and so has Michael. He will continue to get more as we move forward, but … he is a very talented player. Sometimes when we stick him out there at fullback, teams have decided different ways to play him, so I have devised other ways to put him in different spots to get him these chances. We just have to continue to come up with those, he’ll get a few more as we go and we’ll move forward from there.”

Here’s Hue from Monday, on why not use Reece more in the second half Sunday:

“We end up going into our three wide receiver set. That’s why we were able to move the ball so frequently. Marcel is a really, really good player as you know. Certain packages defenses are going to defense in certain ways. So when those things happen you have to go and do the other thing that gives you the chance to win. We had him slated to play a little more tailback than what he did. Because obviously we were down in numbers that way and he got in there a couple of times but he just didn’t carry it as much. But he was in there in the second half as a tailback.”

Hue may want to reconsider using the 3-WR set as much, considering the Raiders offense scored 17 points in the first half and 3 in the second half.